All Forum Posts by: Ronald Allen Barney

If there is no FSBO clause in the buyer agent agreement you'll have to try to get the seller to sign what's called a "Registration Agreement Between Broker and Owner". This document will detail as to who is responsible for paying the brokerage's compensation (seller or buyer). If there was no buyer agent agreement or no FSBO clause in it, and neither party wants to sign the Registration, you just did free work.

Imagine a Zillow for Investors. The same ease of use but with more relevant data like estimates of NOI, cash flow, and cash on cash return in typical scenarios. That would be gigantic.

As suggested in a few different ways and to summarize, automated rental analysis is based on actual rent data, be it Zillow, Rentometer, et al. However, there are many areas for which there is no available, nearby, and relevant rental data. You could be analyzing a deal in a location for which there are no listings in the entire zip code for rent. In my process I build MLS listings into a database table of properties for sale, and another table of properties for rent, and update rental fields on the for sale side in iterations:

1.  If there are rental comps in the same legal subdivision I update rental comp amount and set the rental granularity to subdivision.

2.  "Zooming out", any that had no subdivision comps, I match by zip code, and update any matches found, setting the granularity to zip.

3. Any listings that have no subdivision or zip comps, I take the HUD value for "fair market rent" in the county, and based on previous analysis of the relationship to that value and actual market rent, I multiply the HUD value by 1.22. For those listings I set the granularity to HUD.

In the resulting spreadsheet, any deals that look hot for potential cash flow but with HUD granularity, I do a manual sanity check by trying to manually find rental listings on various rental sites as if I were looking to rent there. If I find comps I set granularity to manual (most reliable), and if not I leave it at HUD (least reliable).

Investing in a deal with HUD reliability of the unit has both risk and opportunity. On the risk side HUD might be overestimating what might fly for some lowball pockets of the county, but then again if there are no actual comps nearby, your rental there might be the only game in town, a "monopoly" based on location, and some people might have little choice other than to pay that rent.

I think with more technically sophisticated APIs like Rentometer they do a geocoding to find the nearest comps and set the confidence level to lower values the farther away the comps are. I could geocode if I paid for the Google Maps API key but it's really not much more accurate than adjusting HUD's numbers for county level comps.

House hacks are increasingly in demand as word is getting out about the trend.  If you find one it's gold.  Jump on it.

First determine what sort of rent that house can command.  Then calculate the equity you would be able to get out of selling, subtracting closing costs and taxes.  With that you should be able to analyze your home as if it were a deal you purchase for buy and hold rental.  The equity you could otherwise get counts as a "cash investment", and the annual cash flow from it divided by that equity will be your cash on cash return on investment.  If cash on cash is not double digits sell and evaluate your housing needs first.  After your housing needs are met evaluate what cash you have left, if any, to make another investment.

If it's prettied up it can be an attractive STR. As a permanent residence tiny home there are young people building their own, and that demographic is using the lower cost of that construction to try to gain financial freedom just like investors, so renting would defeat that purpose. However, if colleges are nearby and your rent can beat typical 1 br rent in that area, you could get interest from students looking to minimize their housing costs.

1.  Funding first.

2.  Then a contractor you can trust.

3.  Then deal finders, including agents, wholesalers, bird doggers, lead genners, whoever.

4.  Then a property manager.

I would add the Millionaire Real Estate Investor by Gary Keller.

The LLC can be in any state. If you solely own your LLC you are your own registered agent.

Property management companies.